Thursday, February 15, 2018

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 224

PIZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Photo Credit: TH
It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 140 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers:

For those who don't know, FMK is the "fuck, marry, kill" game, usually played with three people. It's crude, but it relays certain desires. It's way less problematic when done with food, unless you're one of those kinky mfers who likes foodplay in the bedroom. Note, I am not here to fuck the pizza. In this case, the "fuck" is for pizza I'd enjoy on a fling or once in awhile, "marry" is the pizza that I default to all the time, and "kill" is the pizza I'd throw into the trash.

FUCK - Chicago pizza: I maintain that pizza is a crust of varying thickness with toppings, and Chicago-style isn't so much a pizza as it is a pot-pie or a casserole. Contrary to popular belief, it's not a bad thing; it's just not what I'd call pizza. Pot-pies and casseroles, however, are delicious when done right, and I would not be one to pass up a Chicago-style "slice."

MARRY - New York pizza: C'mon. C'MON.

KILL - St. Louis pizza: I've never had this, but apparently, its closest cousin is a cracker with ketchup on it from what I know? What has St. Louis ever given to the world outside of an arch and a fuck-ass baseball team? Toasted ravioli? I admit that's cool, but man. MAN. Leave the pizza (or the casserole) to the professionals.

It's the same as my post-Enzo Amore firing 205 Live, and that's Drew Gulak. Granted, this whole "return to the Cruiserweight Classic" oeuvre is hot hot HOT, and Cedric Alexander vs. Mustafa Ali from three weeks ago was the best WWE match of the year so far that didn't involve Andrade "Cien" Almas during Royal Rumble weekend. That being said, Gulak's character has been such a delight. I don't know how it plays out now since he's really only been featured on one episode since Amore got fired. The disgraced former Champion was an incredible canvas for Gulak to play off. However, Gulak is talented enough that I'm interested to see where he'll take it now that Amore has been rightfully removed from WWE.

The one I never need to hear again is what Dave Meltzer thinks about anything. Honestly, Meltzer should've dropped off the face of the earth when he and Jim Ross pretty much said "Bitches, amirite?" in response to the domestic abuse allegations against Tomoaki Honma. But all the cacophony around his opinions on matches when he's just one dude who doesn't even watch as much wrestling as many other valid and intelligent critics do (because he's gotta watch MMA, which he swears is just like wrestling) is annoying as shit. Given the fact that he's kind of a racist and a misogynist on top of his opinions being based off insanely labyrinthine reasoning, I wish that everyone would put him in timeout and start making an accord on their own.

Discussions that don't get old are a lot harder to come by, since I tend to get sick of anything if it's mashed into the ground. I don't know, maybe I'm getting to old for this shit. I love a lot about wrestling, but if I spend too much time talking about it, I might grow not to like it, so I stay transient. It's a defense mechanism.

1. Brandon Graham strip-sacking Tom Brady and Derek Barnett making the recovery: You know the phrase "Don't count out Touchdown Tom?" It was created as a larf by Jon Bois, but it's honestly true given how many times Brady has brought the Patriots back from a deficit. If Graham and Barnett don't force that turnover, who knows what Brady would've done on that drive. It won the Super Bowl.

2. The Philly Special: Fuck to Mike Pereira for bringing up that it was an "illegal formation." It was the coolest offensive play in Eagles history, and possibly the most important, and y'know what? The refs said Alshon Jeffery was on the line. Fuck 'im.

3. Jake Elliot's 61 yard field goal: That first Giants came came at a point in the season before anyone had a sense of the Eagles being as good as they were, and man, Odell Beckham, Jr. and Eli Manning carved up the Eagles defense pretty good late. It was another one of those situations where a name QB was about to complete a comeback. Every Eagles fan had been down that road before. Then, the rookie kicker from Memphis set a franchise record and changed the tone of a season.

4. Carson Wentz emerging from the pile against Washington on Monday Night Football: Wentz didn't finish the season, but he was the reason the Eagles got to where they got was because of him. The play that stands out most came when people still thought the Eagles grip on the division wasn't as ironclad as it turned out to be. Washington still looked frisky, and it looked like its defense had Wentz dead to rights, stopping a drive cold and getting a chance to come back. Then Wentz emerged from the mass of defenders and scrambled for a first down on an eventual touchdown drive.

5. Jason Kelce's speech: That was the catharsis of a lifetime of perceived disrespect, and fuck anyone who says he was out of line. Like he said, no one likes Philly, and folks in Philly don't care, or at least shouldn't care.

1. Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega: Wrestling is so gay, so the best couple should give off gay vibes, right? Ibushi and Omega have built such a history over their careers, culminating in a reunion that rent the fucking Bullet Club asunder. When the Golden Lovers reunited, it warranted confetti, and people shook just looking at still photography.

2. Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth: I don't rank them number one because their real life relationship was problematic as shit, and the fact that a lot of the payoff to their on-camera relationship was after she had decided she had enough of his shit. But it was the thing that sealed me as a wrestling fan, and fiction can be beautiful divorced from real life.

3. The Miz and Maryse: Their on-screen relationship began when WWE did an angle where Maryse shot down her real life boyfriend because Vince McMahon hates happiness, but man, when they resumed upon her return to the company last year, it was the perfect nexus of good looks and arrogance. And yet, Miz and Maryse still used their infinite capacity to get people to hate them to, in some way, show how much they deeply cared for each other, even if it was to spite either their opponents or the fans who hated them.

4. Eddie Guerrero and Chyna: It's hard to think of really good wrestling relationships that aren't abusive and one-sided. Guerrero and Chyna as a couple were adorable even if they didn't have to subvert all the tropes to do it.

5. Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae: If either one of them turn on each other, I will cease believing in love.

Honestly, it's easy to envision King James coming to Philly, even if the likelihood doesn't feel all that high. James wants to win titles, like any player of his caliber, and the Sixers have players that would surround him to make it easy for him. I could imagine a Joel Embiid/Ben Simmons/Dario Saric party heading to woo James to come to Philly. Meanwhile, the Lakers sending LaVar Ball as part of its courtship fellowship might turn James off, and no one else really blows him away. Does Houston have the cap space to lure him? Would James really want to go to Golden State and potentially play third banana to two former MVPs in Steph Curry and Kevin Durant? I mean, the answer to both of those questions could be yes, but it's also not hard to envision a scenario where King James wants his last titles to come playing with an exciting young team of budding superstars where he'll be the biggest name player but won't have to do the biggest-name-player levels of work to do it.
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